Cursive writing bill passes Senate education committee

Perhaps having heard the buzz this morning about the link between the Back to Basics bill and the for-profit handwriting instruction company Zaner Bloser, Sen. Allran decided to move the cursive writing legislation through the Senate Education Committee this morning without any further discussion, saying that everyone had already heard enough on the bill.

The bill would mandate cursive writing instruction and memorization of multiplication tables for elementary school students. The legislation passed through committee without any objections.

Home schoolers supporting SB 189, which would change the definition of home schools to include the option of instructional delivery via online technologies, got a win when that bill passed through committee. The change in law could open the door for online virtual schools to move their products into the home schooling market. There is another bill moving through the assembly now that would provide income tax credits to those who home school their children.

Sen. Tillman’s bill to reduce public school reporting requirements passed through committee with one notable change. As previously reported, the bill would have repealed the law mandating personal education plans (PEPs) for at-risk students. In the end, Tillman decided to keep PEPs, as was reflected in the Proposed Committee Substitute (PCS) that was handed out before the committee today.

For those who have followed the course of the “Back to Basics” Bull from its beginnings in the House — where it is now headed, once again, to be reconciled with its Senate version before the governor can sign it— it’s been interesting to see the level of the legislative discussions on this bill swiftly descend. House testimony on the bill began with claims presented to the Educstion Committee as factual — which soon turned out not to be.
After those claims had been exposed, what could be left? Personal anecdote and reminiscences: these could not be verified, after all — these composed yesterday’s Senate discussion. (The eight brief minutes of that discussion would have been much longer, and much more difficult for the Senate’s members, if that discussion had had to mention the issues of integrity and accuracy which have become notorious in connections with the bill’s content and its presumed support.)

Since I do not live in North Carolina, I wonder whether perhaps greater integrity, greater concern for facts, may be expected of Governor McCrory when the time soon comes to either approve, or veto, the bill. It’s been notable that, without exception, all the unfavorable facts and comments regarding the bill have stemmed from cursive: nobody’s objecting to arithmetic!

Could it be that the reason two such disparate matters — cursive and the multiplication tables — were shoveled into one bill was to create a “package deal” — to construct a situation where politicians would fear noticing the integrity issues involved in one part of the bill, because to reject that part of the bill (for even the strongest of reasons) would expose them to the risk of also being portrayed as opponents of math?
If so, would it perhaps be within the Governor’s authority to send the bill back with the request that it be separated into two bills (one for each of two very different issues) and considered that way, from the beginning, instead of melting the two issues as one and expecting that conglomeration to be passed into law without adverse comment from Governor McCrory or from anyone else?